Bunkered down: Top End braces for Monica's wallop

Battening down the hatches children at the barge landing in
Maningrida yesterday, which was closed due to the approach of
Cyclone Monica.Photo: Jake Nowakowski

By Lindsay Murdoch in DarwinApril 24, 2006

THE most intense cyclone in Top End history is threatening
remote Aboriginal communities on Australia's northern coastline and
Elcho Island where 2000 residents were last night sheltering from
destructive winds.

As people in the Galiwin'ku community on Elcho Island sheltered
in cyclone-coded buildings, the Northern Territory Bureau of
Meteorology extended the cyclone watch area to include the Tiwi
Islands and Darwin.

Cyclone Monica, which brought floods to far north Queensland
last week, could hit Darwin tomorrow morning, senior forecaster
Gordon Jackson said last night.

The Darwin Regional Forecasting Centre warned Monica was packing
"very destructive winds" of up to 350kmh as it moved west across
the sea over the weekend.

David Wilson, a resident of Galiwin'ku, 550 kilometres east of
Darwin in North-East Arnhem Land, said residents were evacuated
from low lying areas and taken to a cyclone-coded school.
"Everything else has been just nailed down," Mr Wilson told ABC
radio.

Mr Jackson said on its current track the core of the cyclone
would pass between 50 and 100 kilometres from Elcho Island early
this morning and would probably weaken as it crossed land.

Other communities preparing for the worst last night were
Millingimbi and Maningrida. Maningrida, on the Liverpool Estuary in
Arnhem Land, is well known for its indigenous art.

Mr Jackson said Monica would probably be a category three or
four cyclone by the time it reached the Darwin area.

Hundreds of people spent the weekend in shelters in Nhulunbuy, a
mining town in the NT's Gove Peninsula, as the edge of Monica
passed.